Polyglandular Autoimmune Disease and HLA

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Abstract
Patients (25) with polyglandular autoimmune disease were studied with respect to HLA antigens. The combination of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus [IDDM] with Graves'' disease or atrophic thyroiditis was associated with an increase in HLA-B8; this was not the case for patients with IDDM and goitrous thyroiditis. Four of 7 of these patients were DRw3 positive in contrast to previously established normal distribution of HLA-B8 in patients with goitrous thyroiditis alone. Patients with polyglandular failure may be highly selected for HLA-B8/DRw3 positivity. Two families with polyglandular autoimmune disease are reported. These disorders probably are not necessarily transmitted with B8/DRw3 bearing haplotypes. In 1 family both the affected mother and non-affected father were B8 positive. The mother''s B8, which was associated with DRw7, BfF and Rga, did not appear to be involved in the transmission of disease susceptibility to 2 affected offspring. The search for complete haplotypic arrangement should be pursued to see whether this uncommon haplotype arrangement is peculiar to autoimmune disease.